The other day Mike really inspired me with his post on why his business model is safer than the stock market. I’ve always been a huge supporter of paying for value and improving myself at the same time. I took the Earn1k course last year with Ramit Sethi. Yesterday I signed up for the Hustle Project with Adam Baker and Corbett Barr. I’ve often applied the motto, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying,” to all areas of my life.

My problem is that I don’t take enough risks. I feel that with my young age and overall situation I need to take more chances in an attempt to grow and take things to the next level. This is why I wanted to look at the notion of deciding to grow a business today.

If you’re thinking about investing some serious money you need to assess the situation first I feel. A few questions to ask yourself before you decide to invest money in yourself or your business:

Am I serious about this?

How serious are you about growth? Do you want to talk about it, do nothing, then complain? If that’s the case then you’ll be better off with keeping your money in an online savings account. If you’re serious about your plans to change things up then you need to strongly consider investing some time and money into yourself.

What are my goals?

Do you have any concrete plans? I know for a fact that I want to work with helping other young people reach their financial goals. Making money isn’t a big motivation. However, I’m very realistic and I do want to make some money in life. Do you have any goals? What do you want to accomplish? If you don’t have any goals then you might want to put your growth plans on hold for the time being. If you don’t know where you’re going you’ll never get there.

If you’re not 100% convinced that you want to include growth in your future plans, allow me to present the case for growing your business/personal life:

You don’t want to live a life with regrets.

I really do believe that we will regret what we didn’t do as opposed to what we did. You owe it to yourself to take some chances and to see what you’re made of. If you don’t have the money or want to risk money, you can always attempt to grow by using time. Time is the greatest commodity around. We all have the same amount of time allotted to us. We just all choose to use our time differently. Freeing up your schedule to work on more meaningful projects can really send you in the right direction. You’ll be amazed by what you can pull off when you push your own personal boundaries to see what you’re made of. Do you know what you can accomplish when you put your mind to something?

Build something amazing.

I love the idea of building something powerful. I love the thought of building a community of like-minded people. I respond to every comment on my blog and I love the idea of building towards something special. By taking the leap and investing either time or money into growth plans, you can really build something unforgettable. Something as simple as starting a blog with a highly active readership can really make you feel like you’re doing something right.

Now to be fair we must understand that not everyone will be successful like Mike with the risks that they take. This is why I need to show the case against attempting to grow:

Risk of money.

There’s always that thought looming regarding the money involved. Any time you spend money on something that you’re uncertain of it’s really easy to get all nervous and let anxiety bring you down. Can you handle the risk of losing money? What would yo do if your growth plans fail and you have to find a way to pay the money back? Do you have a backup plan?

Failure.

Nobody wants to fail. The fear of failure is likely what’s holding most of us back from attempting to grow a side business or from taking huge risks. We don’t want to be mocked by our peers and be deemed a failure.

How does one deal with failure? Pamela Slim in Escape From Cubical Nation shared three strong points on learning to deal with failure:

Exam in the truth in fear.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Develop a strong safety net.

At the end of the day, failure is a harsh reality of attempting to grow a business. I believe that if you go by those three key points, you’ll be able to alleviate much of the fear of failure.

Time to turn it over to the readers: Do you have any plans for attempting to grow your business? Please share with us.

Absolutely. I started my Perfecting Parenthood site, growing to about 80-100 readers on average (but no business model yet, still exploring). I plan to make 10+% on my stocks. I plan to buy or start an operating business run by someone else to generate passive income. I plan to quit my job and be a millionaire within 2 years.